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Elite government forces, supported by the Hezbollah converged in the city of Aleppo on Tuesday as rebels boosted their own forces in preparation for a major showdown, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The monitor’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said that it was likely that government forces will lay siege to rebel-controlled parts of Aleppo; rebels, fighting to depose President Bashar Assad, have been in control of parts of the city since July 2012.
“Commando troop reinforcements from the Republican Guard and from (Lebanon’s) Hezbollah continued to be sent, in a bid to surround Aleppo city”, the Observatory said, adding that, at the same time, “rebel and (allied) Islamist brigades sent reinforcements of their own… through the eastern entrance to Aleppo city”
Aleppo was the most populous city in Syria before the conflict in Syria began, but is now a major battleground, with some neighborhoods, most of them in the west, controlled by the regime and others, most of them in the east, controlled by the rebels.
Since December, rebel-held parts of the city have come under near-daily aerial bombardment. According to the Observatory, around 2,000 civilians, 500 of them children, have been killed and tens of thousands of families have been forced to flee since January.
On Tuesday air strikes in rebel-held town Marea and the village Tal Rifaat, killing a child in the process, the Observatory said. Additionally, a mortar struck the regime-held district of Ashrafiyeh in Aleppo.
The developments come only two days after the opposition warned that the regime is about to launch a big assault on Aleppo. Additionally, rebel forces fear the recent advances in the east and north of Syria by extremist group Islamic State (IS), which recently declared a “caliphate” across Iraq and Syria. Rebel forces have been fighting against IS since January – the extremist group was initially welcomed by some rebel groups, but its hegemony and systematic abuse has turned all rebel forces against them.